This invention relates to end structure in a railway hopper car.
It is known in the railway car art to use corrugated members for the sides and ends of railway hopper cars. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 401,530 (1889); 1,292,899 (1919) having corrugated sides; and 2,865,309 (1958) having corrugated ends.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,490,397 (1970) a stub sill railway hopper car is disclosed having a bolster web extending vertically from a transverse bolster cover plate to an end hopper slope sheet, and a pair of diagonal end struts which extend from an upper hopper bulkhead near the top of the car downwardly and inwardly to the stub sill. The moment generated by impact forces which tend to rotate the car downwardly is reacted by a couple including a compressive force in the bolster web and a tensile force in the diagonal end struts. This is a statically determinate structure which allows easy calculation of the impact and squeeze loadings of these members.
The bolster web is provided with channel reinforcements which are welded to the bolster web, to the bolster cover plate, and to the end hopper slope sheet.
This welding incurs a substantial cost penalty. For example, a typical hopper car has a bolster web about four feet high. Using the reinforcements shown in FIG. 5 of this patent, this would amount to 16 channels per car. Using two welds, four feet long on each channel equates to about 128 feet of welding per car.